The Role of an Inpatient Hospice and Palliative Clinical Pharmacist in the Interdisciplinary Team

Abstract

Palliative care is a specialized health care service for individuals with serious illness at any stage and can be provided in any setting. Current national consensus developed by palliative care experts recommends the inclusion of pharmacists in an interdisciplinary team (IDT) to provide quality palliative care. However, national registry data report that less than 10% of inpatient palliative teams in the U.S. have a clinical pharmacist. Clinical pharmacists have an impactful role in palliative patients’ quality of life by optimizing symptom management, deprescribing, and providing education to the palliative care team as well as patients and their families. In this report, we review the current literature on the role of a palliative pharmacist in an inpatient palliative care setting and compare and contrast this with our own clinical practice, providing case examples about the role of a palliative clinical pharmacist in an interdisciplinary inpatient palliative care setting. Future strategies are needed to increase post-graduate specialized pharmacy residency training in palliative care as well as education on palliative and hospice care in pharmacy schools to support the role of clinical pharmacists in palliative care.

Consultation-Based Deprescribing Service to Optimize Palliative Care for Terminal Cancer Patients

“…Though these guidelines are comparably effective, noble distinction exists between them [22], suggesting that a holistic approach-melding multiple guidelines-could yield optimal results in practical applications [23,24]. Several pharmacist-led deprescribing service models have demonstrated their efficacy in reducing PIMs and medication-related problems (MRPs) while adeptly managing symptoms [25][26][27][28][29]. To deliver efficient and effective medication services to patients, it is imperative to understand the types, causes, and causative medications of medication-related problems (MRPs) that the target patients possess.…”